Web analytics 257
Customer lifecycle analytics
Customer lifecycle analytics is a visitor-centric approach to measuring that falls under the umbrella of lifecycle
marketing. Page views, clicks and other events (such as API calls, access to third-party services, etc.) are all tied to
an individual visitor instead of being stored as separate data points. Customer lifecycle analytics attempts to connect
all the data points into a marketing funnel that can offer insights into visitor behavior and website optimization.Other methods
Other methods of data collection are sometimes used. Packet sniffing collects data by sniffing the network traffic
passing between the web server and the outside world. Packet sniffing involves no changes to the web pages or web
servers. Integrating web analytics into the web server software itself is also possible.[6] Both these methods claim to
provide better real-time data than other methods.Key definitions
There are no globally agreed definitions within web analytics as the industry bodies have been trying to agree
definitions that are useful and definitive for some time. The main bodies who have had input in this area have been
JICWEBS (The Joint Industry Committee for Web Standards in the UK and Ireland) [7], ABCe (Audit Bureau of
Circulations electronic, UK and Europe) [8], The WAA (Web Analytics Association, US) and to a lesser extent the
IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau). This does not prevent the following list from being a useful guide, suffering
only slightly from ambiguity. Both the WAA and the ABCe provide more definitive lists for those who are declaring
their statistics using the metrics defined by either.- Hit - A request for a file from the web server. Available only in log analysis. The number of hits received by a
website is frequently cited to assert its popularity, but this number is extremely misleading and dramatically
over-estimates popularity. A single web-page typically consists of multiple (often dozens) of discrete files, each
of which is counted as a hit as the page is downloaded, so the number of hits is really an arbitrary number more
reflective of the complexity of individual pages on the website than the website's actual popularity. The total
number of visitors or page views provides a more realistic and accurate assessment of popularity. - Page view - A request for a file whose type is defined as a page in log analysis. An occurrence of the script being
run in page tagging. In log analysis, a single page view may generate multiple hits as all the resources required to
view the page (images, .js and .css files) are also requested from the web server. - Visit / Session - A visit is defined as a series of page requests from the same uniquely identified client with a time
of no more than 30 minutes between each page request. A session is defined as a series of page requests from the
same uniquely identified client with a time of no more than 30 minutes and no requests for pages from other
domains intervening between page requests. In other words, a session ends when someone goes to another site, or
30 minutes elapse between pageviews, whichever comes first. A visit ends only after a 30 minute time delay. If
someone leaves a site, then returns within 30 minutes, this will count as one visit but two sessions. In practice,
most systems ignore sessions and many analysts use both terms for visits. Because time between pageviews is
critical to the definition of visits and sessions, a single page view does not constitute a visit or a session (it is a
"bounce"). - First Visit / First Session - (also known as 'Absolute Unique Visitor) A visit from a visitor who has not made any
previous visits. - Visitor / Unique Visitor / Unique User - The uniquely identified client generating requests on the web server
(log analysis) or viewing pages (page tagging) within a defined time period (i.e. day, week or month). A Unique
Visitor counts once within the timescale. A visitor can make multiple visits. Identification is made to the visitor's
computer, not the person, usually via cookie and/or IP+User Agent. Thus the same person visiting from two
different computers or with two different browsers will count as two Unique Visitors. Increasingly visitors are
uniquely identified by Flash LSO's (Local Shared Object), which are less susceptible to privacy enforcement.